


Worry

by Balthuza



Category: Shards of the Sun
Genre: F/M, Gen, he just wants everybody to be happy, poor Steffit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-30
Updated: 2017-01-30
Packaged: 2018-09-20 22:37:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 537
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9519002
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Balthuza/pseuds/Balthuza
Summary: First and foremost, Steffit worries about his children.





	

Steffit worries. It's just a thing he does. He worries about the contracts and checks them twenty times more than he ought to. He worries about the shipments. He worries about his employees and their work, and whether their shop assistant will finally ask out the young baker from the store on the other street, one that always passes them random sweets with lunch. He worries that Gin works too much and that she believes she's the only one who can solve any problem. He sometimes worries she might be right. 

But first and foremost, Steffit worries about his children. 

The older ones are now in and out and old enough to be irritated by his worries. The younger ones too preoccupied with their lives to see most of it. 

He worries when Nil comes back with a split lip, Flick hovering over him, her hair all messed up, the clothes torn in few places. He worries when they are late for dinner whether they get caught up exploring odd places in the city. He worries when Nil’s laughter becomes oddly subdued, and Flick’s goes forcefully sharp at the same times. 

He barely worries when her exams come, sitting with his whole family at his side when she smiles and burns through the tasks. 

His heart breaks when Flick’s lie is found out (and of course it was a lie, but such a good one, he wanted to believe it as much as they) and when Nil stands one morning in the kitchen door, a small piece of paper in his shaking hand, pale face and drawn, it feels like a knife wedged between the pieces. 

He worries about Nil’s drinking and Gin’s working. He worries about the note they get  _ weeks _ after she disappears, and about the silence before the next letter, then he worries about that as well. (Somewhere deep he worries about the Prince and the Confectioner, because he knows she tends to trust far too easily and she might be able to take care of herself, but it doesn't mean she cannot be hurt.) He worries about the treason, just a little bit, but then he has a strange man in the cellar to worry for and about and he forgets it altogether. He worries about Fyr, mentally scolding Flick for failing to take care of her friends, and then his heart stutters when its ugly head rears the fear he'll never have a chance to tell her that in person. 

When Fyr refuses their help and seems to avoid their company, he worries he hates it there. He quietly asks about safe transport to Illerith, but then Fyr comes home with Nil one morning and that's an entirely new set of worries. During the day Steffit tends to put all his worries into his work, and when the opal reflects a certain way, in his mind he can see the sun. He sighs, and puts a large piece aside to cut it for the client, and uses the rest as his worry leads him. Fire opal and amethyst, a sharp contrast, almost garish, set on a silver hair pin. He gently sets it aside and gets back to the work at hand. 


End file.
